"Rocky Mountain stop," Colorado, May 2006

Stop for views

There's always that dichotomy in a visit to a national park -- at least those grand, expansive Western national parks that were established to preserve the vast wilderness. How much of the park are you truly experiencing if you don't get too far from the car?

When my former college roommate and I went out West on a weeklong road trip to mark our 30th birthdays, we devised a grand loop that began and ended in Denver and went as far north and west as Yellowstone and Idaho and as far east as Billings and Cheyenne and that little southwestern corner of Nebraska.

After spending the first two nights in Boulder, we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park on our way north into Wyoming. We stopped at parking areas and vistas, spent a little time walking along the ridges and gazing into the valleys, but we didn't truly leave the car behind and traipse down a mountain path to truly get a feel for the place, the way we did on a college trip to Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

On the one hand, I would've preferred to spend more time -- more quiet time -- in the Rocky Mountain NP, but on the other, we wouldn't have been able to do and see as much as we did if we'd allotted more time for any of our stops. We would've had to cut something out of Boulder, Rocky Mountain NP, Jackson Hole (and the Tetons and Yellowstone), Little Bighorn National Monument, Cheyenne or our last night in Denver. As it was, we didn't get to actually enter Teton NP or detour to Devil's Tower (I definitely have to get back to that one).

But in the end, I think I'd rather spend a little time at more places on the first visit and come back a second time to experience a place more fully. And then someday, when I'm independently wealthy or comfortably retired, I'll simply be able to do whatever, wherever, whenever, for however long I'd like.

Or so I can dream...